Trucks at night, paramilitary Music 01.00.00.00
George: Of all the fruits of the Bolivian jungle, one is far and away the most profitable and most controversial. It begins its journey to the rich markets of the world hidden beneath innocuous cargoes.
What the dogs are sniffing for is a paste made from the Bolivian coca leaf - the first stage in the production of cocaine.
Map Bolivia (insert) Music
Andes George: The story of the coca leaf begins in the mythology of the Indians of the High Andes. 00.50
The Incas believed the Sun God ordered the Goddess of the Moon to plant the coca leaf so that his people could alleviate their hunger and work more easily.
So for centuries, the coca leaf was a blessing from the Gods.
Coca leaves George: It was only when European chemists discovered 150 years ago how to make cocaine that the coca leaf began its long descent. No longer a blessing, but a curse. One that sullies the reputation of Bolivia abroad, and at home, turns Bolivians against each other. 01.14
Demonstration
George: Bolivia is already racked by industrial strife. With the unions of accusing the government of bowing to international pressure for market reforms at the expense of its own people. 01.43
The sad truth is the country’s almost broke, its economy propped up in large part by the illegal trade in its valuable commodity - the coca leaf.
Rainy town Music
George: To hear our driver, Roberto, tell it, the jungle town of Eterazama was once oozing with wealth because of cocaine. 02.24
Roberto in car Roberto: Luxury was abundant.Cars...beautiful cars...Women There were a lot of people who had a lot of money. 02.33
George: Roberto knows it well. He used to make good money trucking in beer - 7,000 crates of it a week. 02.42
Roberto: But that wasn’t even enough for one week. That would just go. They drank a lot of alcohol. There were women who worked as prostitutes and one women could earn up to thirty or forty thousand dollars a month. 02.50
Rainy town George: The people with the money to burn were cocaine traffickers. They paid off the generals who ran Bolivia in the 70s and were free to disport themselves as they wished in Eterazama. 03.11
The boom lasted about a decade until the Generals were tossed out. The Americans demanded the new government chase out the drug barons as well - and Eterazama sank back into poverty. 03.39
Mountains/La Paz George: From the lowland jungles where the coca leaf grows to the formidable peaks surrounding the capital, La Paz, is South America’s poorest country.
As such, it is easy prey to an economic giant. From its Embassy here, the United States can virtually dictate policy to the Bolivians. And it does.
Ambassador interview Ambassador: They understood that for them there could be some losses if they didn’t give as much attention as we thought necessary to the drug problem. And we were reasonably open about it. And the government, of course, did not like the pressure. 04.02
Leopards paramilitary investigating maceration pits
George: This the military muscle the US uses to enforce its policy. The Leopards - Bolivia’s anti-narcotics paramilitary police. Trained and paid for by the Americans.
04.22
In the jungle of the Chapare region, this unit is searching for illegal maceration pits, where the leaves are processed with chemicals into coca paste. 04.41
Soldier: This is a small cocaine and coca paste factory. Today it’s the first factory that we’ve found. You can see the trenches - the activity that’s been going on. There’s a lot of coca stacked up over here.
Burning of maceration pit George: One maceration pit is destroyed but with 2 million hectares of Chapare jungle to police, even the Leopards know the battle is impossible to win.
Paramilitary walking through jungle Soldier: The problem with narco-trafficking and the problem in Chapare is divided into two parts - one part is the narco-traffic problem and the other is the coca leaf. And we’re talking about a serious social problem. 05.38
Coca leaves George: The coca leaf and its production remain an integral part of daily life in Bolivia. You’ll find it for sale in most market places. Chewing it has a mildly narcotic effect. As tea, it makes a restoring brew.
Ambassador Ambassador: I see it as part of culture. Whether it’s positive or negative, I wouldn’t be willing to say. But it is definitely an entrenched part of culture.
06.11
Soldier in jungle George: Nonetheless, American economic pressure has galvanised the Bolivians into wiping out 5,500 hectares of coca plants in the past 12 months.
But it’s a policy that spells misery for many cocaleros - coca growing families for whom the leaf is the only way to eke out a living. 06.36
8 years ago, Ever’s family tried to do the right thing by the government. They were paid $4,000 American dollars for ripping out their coca plantation.
Berto and Ever at house Ever’s father, Berto, scrupulously followed advice to plant alternative crops. The result was disaster. Berto’s new crops failed, transportation never arrived, export markets just didn’t materialise. He’s more impoverished today than ever before. And $7,000 in debt.
07.02
Berto Berto: I feel disillusioned. I feel the noose around my neck. I’ve been threatened with gaol. I bought all these crops with the money I got from the bank loan. I know I’m running a very high risk but I’ve accepted the fact that I have to go to gaol. 07.26
AmbassadorSuper: CURTIS KAMMANUS Ambassador Ambassador: The people do have both the option of growing pineapple, banana and marketing it, and receiving a decent income. Or they can continue to grow coca. Because the profit in coca is so high, the price will always be higher. The yield per hectre of land will always be higher than legal crops. This is why you need an enforcement side of your equation. But for the ability to support a family and to continue to live in the Chapare, we think there is a real option now for virtually every family in the Chapare. 07.44
George: But Berto sees no real options. In fact, he can see only one course open to him - to become a criminal.
08.21
Berto Berto: I’m in despair. So I’ve decided I’m going to plant coca again and I’ll risk going to gaol. Maybe my whole family will go. There’s no other way out.
George: The irony is that cocaleros like Berto see nothing wrong with the coca leaf. If we in the west want to add kerosene, sulphuric acid and other chemicals to it, turn it into cocaine, stick it in our noses and then kill ourselves with it, well that’s our problem, not theirs. 08.42
Berto handling coca leaves Berto: Yes, well it saddens us that they put it to a harmful use. We don’t approve of that. We produce it for chewing - for the poor people to work - because there’s so much misery.
Truck George: Uncles Sam’s involvement in wiping out their means of survival has bred deep resentment against Americans among the 12,000 cocaleros families of the Chapere. 09.34
They live in isolated communities, growing their coca leaves in small clearings.
Separated by appalling roads through 2 million hectares of jungle that is sliced up by tributaries of the Amazon River, they nevertheless have many stories in common about their treatment at the hands of the police, and a common suspicion of foreigners. 09.57
George: Afraid of who we are, they’re reluctant to admit that they grow coca at all.
Woman: We’re only planting rice. Just enough for us.Interpreter: Do you have any coca?Woman: Yes, I do have some - but it’s only a little bit.
George: With time, they open up a little, to talk about what happens when the police arrive to search for coca paste, or to wipe out their coca crop.
Man Man: They come at night - sometimes at dawn - 3 or 5 in the morning.Interpreter: Is that what’s happened here?Man: yes. They arrive at dawn, anytime. 10.39
Woman Woman: They hit and kick the men - sometimes using rifle butts. Even the kids! They just take them out of the house, throw them into a truck, and take them away. What can you do?
Ambassador Ambassador: It is carrot and stick and a mixture of those two, we hope will shift towards the carrot, but it will never be possible to persuade people to stop growing coca if there isn’t an enforcement mechanism. 11.06
People chewing coca George: At a government level that may be so, but it is certainly not how many of the people feel. 11.20
Evo Morales As for the Bolivian government they prefer to be a true and faithful servant of the American Embassy instead of the Bolivian people. 11.27
Rally George: Emotions in Chapare are running high.
George: The cocalero have unified politically under the charismatic leadership of this man - Evo Morales - and embarked on a series of confrontations with government and police. 11.49
George: Many cocaleros in Chapere are former miners, thrown out of work in the 80s when tin prices collapsed. Now utterly dependent on coca crops to survive, they’re more than willing to do battle rather than face destitution a second time.
Morales with group Morales: We can’t consider this coca leaf as illegal - as cocaine. This green leaf is health. It’s a friend to the campesinos of this region - of the people. Cocaine is white. It’s not part of the Andean culture that we are defending.
George: The cocaleros say the police, under pressure to meet American imposed targets, routinely use threats, physical abuse and arbitrary arrest against them. 12.40
Man: This is where the bullet went in. Then later, they tied my hands behind my back, like this. They hit me...Beat me. They broke a rib - with a rifle butt.
George: And inevitably, such confrontations lead to deaths. 12.58
Man: They took me outside and almost kicked me to death. Then my mother came out. As she was coming out the door, they shot her. Two weeks later she died.
Man in splint George: These are stories supported by at least a score of local and international human rights groups - including Human Rights Watch Americas and the US-based Andean Information network. 13.14
Super: KEN BLUESTONEAndean Information Network Ken: We have documented proof that violence has increased, that detentions have increased. We strongly believe that the Bolivian government is rounding up more people to impress upon the United States government that they’re doing more to eradicate it and they’re being stronger on narcotics. 13.27
Super: CHRISTINE MAKHTARIANAndean Information Network Christine: They are putting tremendous pressure, they’re using military solutions, there’s a wide scale militarisation that’s occurring in the Chapare, and we’ve seen a direct result of that has been increased violence.
Ambassador Ambassador: No, I don’t accept it. This has been charged by some human rights organisations. I don’t believe that it is true. Are official view of the human rights situation in Bolivia is due to be released in the first week of March. We have found isolated cases of police brutality or improper conduct and that I would say is really quite isolated. The problem here is that the people in the Chapare who grow the coca tend to bring these cases to public attention in a very exaggerated way. 13.57
Christine Christine: We see the actual human aspect of this war. And as US citizens that’s probably what upsets us the most. And we just think the embassy needs to stop turning its back to what’s really happening in the Chapare.
Christine and Peter George at women’s prison Christine: This is the women’s prison. You can see it’s very crowded because of Law 1000, the anti-narcotics laws, they have quite a number of people here. It’s overcrowded.
George: Christine Mokhtarian says its unlikely anyone in this jail stood to gain much, if anything, from trafficking. Indeed, she says, many are undoubtedly innocent. Peasant women who spend up to four years in jail before their cases are even completed. Women like Betty.
Christine: She was taken off the bus and ‘umopar’, the Leopards as they’re called, took her and removed all her clothes and started searching her and wanted to rape her. She did not allow them to rape her and because of that, they put the charge on to her. She refused to let them violate her.
15.23
George: The police, Christine says, routinely fabricate evidence and trick or beat confessions out of the frightened peasants. The court rarely challenges the police version of events. 15.40
Christine: And in the final sentence she was given 8 years, which was more that what was the original recommendation. So it appears very unjust.
She’s lost everyone in her family her children, her husband. She feels like she’s lost everything.
People on bus George: Rather than the narco-traffickers, it is instead, the poorest members of the poorest country in South America who bear the brunt of the war against coca and cocaine. The trade continues to flourish. The traders continue to profit. 16.18
Christine Christine: This whole drug war is only touching a minute part of the problem when you go after the cocaleros, who really aren’t even part of the problem They are growing it because there’s tremendous demand for it. They don’t control the trade. And I think it’s ridiculous for the embassy to say that there are people who have a cocaine problem in the United States, and it’s all the fault of a poor campesino living in the Chapare. 16.35
George: In the United States, the term ‘War on Drugs’ has been officially dropped by the Clinton administration. 17.00
But in the jungles the war goes on just the same. 17.15
ENDS 17.25
George: Of all the fruits of the Bolivian jungle, one is far and away the most profitable and most controversial. It begins its journey to the rich markets of the world hidden beneath innocuous cargoes.
What the dogs are sniffing for is a paste made from the Bolivian coca leaf - the first stage in the production of cocaine.
Map Bolivia (insert) Music
Andes George: The story of the coca leaf begins in the mythology of the Indians of the High Andes. 00.50
The Incas believed the Sun God ordered the Goddess of the Moon to plant the coca leaf so that his people could alleviate their hunger and work more easily.
So for centuries, the coca leaf was a blessing from the Gods.
Coca leaves George: It was only when European chemists discovered 150 years ago how to make cocaine that the coca leaf began its long descent. No longer a blessing, but a curse. One that sullies the reputation of Bolivia abroad, and at home, turns Bolivians against each other. 01.14
Demonstration
George: Bolivia is already racked by industrial strife. With the unions of accusing the government of bowing to international pressure for market reforms at the expense of its own people. 01.43
The sad truth is the country’s almost broke, its economy propped up in large part by the illegal trade in its valuable commodity - the coca leaf.
Rainy town Music
George: To hear our driver, Roberto, tell it, the jungle town of Eterazama was once oozing with wealth because of cocaine. 02.24
Roberto in car Roberto: Luxury was abundant.Cars...beautiful cars...Women There were a lot of people who had a lot of money. 02.33
George: Roberto knows it well. He used to make good money trucking in beer - 7,000 crates of it a week. 02.42
Roberto: But that wasn’t even enough for one week. That would just go. They drank a lot of alcohol. There were women who worked as prostitutes and one women could earn up to thirty or forty thousand dollars a month. 02.50
Rainy town George: The people with the money to burn were cocaine traffickers. They paid off the generals who ran Bolivia in the 70s and were free to disport themselves as they wished in Eterazama. 03.11
The boom lasted about a decade until the Generals were tossed out. The Americans demanded the new government chase out the drug barons as well - and Eterazama sank back into poverty. 03.39
Mountains/La Paz George: From the lowland jungles where the coca leaf grows to the formidable peaks surrounding the capital, La Paz, is South America’s poorest country.
As such, it is easy prey to an economic giant. From its Embassy here, the United States can virtually dictate policy to the Bolivians. And it does.
Ambassador interview Ambassador: They understood that for them there could be some losses if they didn’t give as much attention as we thought necessary to the drug problem. And we were reasonably open about it. And the government, of course, did not like the pressure. 04.02
Leopards paramilitary investigating maceration pits
George: This the military muscle the US uses to enforce its policy. The Leopards - Bolivia’s anti-narcotics paramilitary police. Trained and paid for by the Americans.
04.22
In the jungle of the Chapare region, this unit is searching for illegal maceration pits, where the leaves are processed with chemicals into coca paste. 04.41
Soldier: This is a small cocaine and coca paste factory. Today it’s the first factory that we’ve found. You can see the trenches - the activity that’s been going on. There’s a lot of coca stacked up over here.
Burning of maceration pit George: One maceration pit is destroyed but with 2 million hectares of Chapare jungle to police, even the Leopards know the battle is impossible to win.
Paramilitary walking through jungle Soldier: The problem with narco-trafficking and the problem in Chapare is divided into two parts - one part is the narco-traffic problem and the other is the coca leaf. And we’re talking about a serious social problem. 05.38
Coca leaves George: The coca leaf and its production remain an integral part of daily life in Bolivia. You’ll find it for sale in most market places. Chewing it has a mildly narcotic effect. As tea, it makes a restoring brew.
Ambassador Ambassador: I see it as part of culture. Whether it’s positive or negative, I wouldn’t be willing to say. But it is definitely an entrenched part of culture.
06.11
Soldier in jungle George: Nonetheless, American economic pressure has galvanised the Bolivians into wiping out 5,500 hectares of coca plants in the past 12 months.
But it’s a policy that spells misery for many cocaleros - coca growing families for whom the leaf is the only way to eke out a living. 06.36
8 years ago, Ever’s family tried to do the right thing by the government. They were paid $4,000 American dollars for ripping out their coca plantation.
Berto and Ever at house Ever’s father, Berto, scrupulously followed advice to plant alternative crops. The result was disaster. Berto’s new crops failed, transportation never arrived, export markets just didn’t materialise. He’s more impoverished today than ever before. And $7,000 in debt.
07.02
Berto Berto: I feel disillusioned. I feel the noose around my neck. I’ve been threatened with gaol. I bought all these crops with the money I got from the bank loan. I know I’m running a very high risk but I’ve accepted the fact that I have to go to gaol. 07.26
AmbassadorSuper: CURTIS KAMMANUS Ambassador Ambassador: The people do have both the option of growing pineapple, banana and marketing it, and receiving a decent income. Or they can continue to grow coca. Because the profit in coca is so high, the price will always be higher. The yield per hectre of land will always be higher than legal crops. This is why you need an enforcement side of your equation. But for the ability to support a family and to continue to live in the Chapare, we think there is a real option now for virtually every family in the Chapare. 07.44
George: But Berto sees no real options. In fact, he can see only one course open to him - to become a criminal.
08.21
Berto Berto: I’m in despair. So I’ve decided I’m going to plant coca again and I’ll risk going to gaol. Maybe my whole family will go. There’s no other way out.
George: The irony is that cocaleros like Berto see nothing wrong with the coca leaf. If we in the west want to add kerosene, sulphuric acid and other chemicals to it, turn it into cocaine, stick it in our noses and then kill ourselves with it, well that’s our problem, not theirs. 08.42
Berto handling coca leaves Berto: Yes, well it saddens us that they put it to a harmful use. We don’t approve of that. We produce it for chewing - for the poor people to work - because there’s so much misery.
Truck George: Uncles Sam’s involvement in wiping out their means of survival has bred deep resentment against Americans among the 12,000 cocaleros families of the Chapere. 09.34
They live in isolated communities, growing their coca leaves in small clearings.
Separated by appalling roads through 2 million hectares of jungle that is sliced up by tributaries of the Amazon River, they nevertheless have many stories in common about their treatment at the hands of the police, and a common suspicion of foreigners. 09.57
George: Afraid of who we are, they’re reluctant to admit that they grow coca at all.
Woman: We’re only planting rice. Just enough for us.Interpreter: Do you have any coca?Woman: Yes, I do have some - but it’s only a little bit.
George: With time, they open up a little, to talk about what happens when the police arrive to search for coca paste, or to wipe out their coca crop.
Man Man: They come at night - sometimes at dawn - 3 or 5 in the morning.Interpreter: Is that what’s happened here?Man: yes. They arrive at dawn, anytime. 10.39
Woman Woman: They hit and kick the men - sometimes using rifle butts. Even the kids! They just take them out of the house, throw them into a truck, and take them away. What can you do?
Ambassador Ambassador: It is carrot and stick and a mixture of those two, we hope will shift towards the carrot, but it will never be possible to persuade people to stop growing coca if there isn’t an enforcement mechanism. 11.06
People chewing coca George: At a government level that may be so, but it is certainly not how many of the people feel. 11.20
Evo Morales As for the Bolivian government they prefer to be a true and faithful servant of the American Embassy instead of the Bolivian people. 11.27
Rally George: Emotions in Chapare are running high.
George: The cocalero have unified politically under the charismatic leadership of this man - Evo Morales - and embarked on a series of confrontations with government and police. 11.49
George: Many cocaleros in Chapere are former miners, thrown out of work in the 80s when tin prices collapsed. Now utterly dependent on coca crops to survive, they’re more than willing to do battle rather than face destitution a second time.
Morales with group Morales: We can’t consider this coca leaf as illegal - as cocaine. This green leaf is health. It’s a friend to the campesinos of this region - of the people. Cocaine is white. It’s not part of the Andean culture that we are defending.
George: The cocaleros say the police, under pressure to meet American imposed targets, routinely use threats, physical abuse and arbitrary arrest against them. 12.40
Man: This is where the bullet went in. Then later, they tied my hands behind my back, like this. They hit me...Beat me. They broke a rib - with a rifle butt.
George: And inevitably, such confrontations lead to deaths. 12.58
Man: They took me outside and almost kicked me to death. Then my mother came out. As she was coming out the door, they shot her. Two weeks later she died.
Man in splint George: These are stories supported by at least a score of local and international human rights groups - including Human Rights Watch Americas and the US-based Andean Information network. 13.14
Super: KEN BLUESTONEAndean Information Network Ken: We have documented proof that violence has increased, that detentions have increased. We strongly believe that the Bolivian government is rounding up more people to impress upon the United States government that they’re doing more to eradicate it and they’re being stronger on narcotics. 13.27
Super: CHRISTINE MAKHTARIANAndean Information Network Christine: They are putting tremendous pressure, they’re using military solutions, there’s a wide scale militarisation that’s occurring in the Chapare, and we’ve seen a direct result of that has been increased violence.
Ambassador Ambassador: No, I don’t accept it. This has been charged by some human rights organisations. I don’t believe that it is true. Are official view of the human rights situation in Bolivia is due to be released in the first week of March. We have found isolated cases of police brutality or improper conduct and that I would say is really quite isolated. The problem here is that the people in the Chapare who grow the coca tend to bring these cases to public attention in a very exaggerated way. 13.57
Christine Christine: We see the actual human aspect of this war. And as US citizens that’s probably what upsets us the most. And we just think the embassy needs to stop turning its back to what’s really happening in the Chapare.
Christine and Peter George at women’s prison Christine: This is the women’s prison. You can see it’s very crowded because of Law 1000, the anti-narcotics laws, they have quite a number of people here. It’s overcrowded.
George: Christine Mokhtarian says its unlikely anyone in this jail stood to gain much, if anything, from trafficking. Indeed, she says, many are undoubtedly innocent. Peasant women who spend up to four years in jail before their cases are even completed. Women like Betty.
Christine: She was taken off the bus and ‘umopar’, the Leopards as they’re called, took her and removed all her clothes and started searching her and wanted to rape her. She did not allow them to rape her and because of that, they put the charge on to her. She refused to let them violate her.
15.23
George: The police, Christine says, routinely fabricate evidence and trick or beat confessions out of the frightened peasants. The court rarely challenges the police version of events. 15.40
Christine: And in the final sentence she was given 8 years, which was more that what was the original recommendation. So it appears very unjust.
She’s lost everyone in her family her children, her husband. She feels like she’s lost everything.
People on bus George: Rather than the narco-traffickers, it is instead, the poorest members of the poorest country in South America who bear the brunt of the war against coca and cocaine. The trade continues to flourish. The traders continue to profit. 16.18
Christine Christine: This whole drug war is only touching a minute part of the problem when you go after the cocaleros, who really aren’t even part of the problem They are growing it because there’s tremendous demand for it. They don’t control the trade. And I think it’s ridiculous for the embassy to say that there are people who have a cocaine problem in the United States, and it’s all the fault of a poor campesino living in the Chapare. 16.35
George: In the United States, the term ‘War on Drugs’ has been officially dropped by the Clinton administration. 17.00
But in the jungles the war goes on just the same. 17.15
ENDS 17.25